The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

The girl ( original English Title: The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon ) is a novel by American author Stephen King. The novel was published in 1999 in New York's Viking -Verlag. The translation into German by Wulf Bergner published the snow Kluth -Verlag in 2000.

Content

The nine -year-old Patricia McFarland, called " Trisha ", suffers from the separation of their parents and the endless quarrels between brother Pete and mother Quilla. Situated on a hike in the wilderness of New England they to unobserved to pee by the two between shrubs and trees. She wants a short cut back and lost. In a panic, she examines the way back, but gets deeper and deeper into the forest. Soon she is outside the territory in which they later searchers suspect. In the backpack Trisha has two Twinkies, a hard-boiled egg, a tuna sandwich, a bottle of lemonade, a bottle of water, a bag of potato chips, a rain poncho, a Gameboy and their battery-operated stereo with radio receiver there.

While roaming around the forest, she remembers helpful things who have been told their mother or she has read in books, such that rivers never flow in the circle, but always lead to humans. On the way to a stream she slips into a tree wasp nest and gets stung by dozens of wasps. But that should not be their only problem. Your food supplies run out, and the stream ends in a swamp.

Again and again they must defend themselves against their own inner voice, not to create the way back. She feels watched and followed by a " special thing" in a dream introduces himself as the "God of the Perplexed ". Especially at night, they feel it in their vicinity.

In the meantime, also happens in the outside world a lot: Your quarrelsome brother withdraws into herself, mother and father back to sleep in the same bed. The police, meanwhile, is conducted on a completely wrong track, arrests a suspect and reduces the search area.

Trisha drinking creek water and feeds on false fruits, beechnuts, raw fish and tadpoles. First, she vomits the Eaten, has diarrhea and is slowly sick. But she drags herself. Hope it draws from inner dialogues with her ​​idol Tom Gordon. Gordon plays as a pitcher for the baseball team Boston Red Sox. She listens to the games his team initially every night with her radio Walkman. Later, when mixed by forces loss reality and imagination, it appears again and again as a companion.

The imaginary companion motivates the dirty, weak, sick and frightened Trisha to always further exertion, until they finally found a road. When she hears away cars, their pursuer comes out of the woodwork.

In the sequel to Father, mother and brother gathered around the hospital bed of Trisha. Nine days they spent in the wilderness. Your victory, she concludes with the victory gesture by Tom Gordon: with the outstretched index finger to the sky. Then it falls to sleep.

Find out more

In the novel, Stephen King compares the motivation to persevere with Trisha again and again with the game tactics in baseball. Therefore, a basic knowledge of the sport are helpful for German readers. Tom Gordon is a real player in the Boston Red Sox. In the epilogue explains King that he has slightly changed the game plan of the Red Sox in 1998 for his novel.

The book is distributed by the German Snow Kluth publisher for marketing reasons in the same content two versions, which differ only in the design of book jackets (black or white). The reason for this double publication is presumably that the publisher of the Stephen King editions from other publishers - wants to build - such as edition or philtrum Phantasia Press.

An intentional adaptation by director George A. Romero did not materialize.

For leitmotif ' isolation ' see the entry for you.